Wednesday, July 29, 2009

A Crooked Kind of Perfect



How it was supposed to be..…I was supposed to play the piano. That is was Zoe Elias wanted to do. She wanted to play classical music on the piano at Carnegie Hall wearing a ball gown and tiara. It would be sophisticated and worldly. She would wear white gloves that came to her elbows and she would delicately pull them off one finger at a time as the audience waited with anticipation for her to begin.

How it is…..I play the organ. Zoe Elias's father has agoraphobia (a fear of crowds) and when he went to buy the piano he got nervous and bought an organ instead…a wood grained, vinyl-seated, wheeze bag organ. So instead of playing beautiful, sophisticated classical music, Zoe is playing TV theme songs from the 80's. She begins taking lessons from Ms Person (that’s Per-saaahn) who is full of tidbits of wisdom as well as delightful exclamations such as Mozart’s postman, Chopin’s toaster, and Beethoven’s barbershop, and soon Zoe is scheduled to compete in the Perform-a-Rama!

Nothing goes the way Zoe plans. She is dumped by her best friend at school but befriended by Wheeler, considered a troublemaker by his teachers. Wheeler begins spending every afternoon after school in Zoe's kitchen with her father baking cookies and pastries. And Zoe is playing a wheeze bag of an organ instead of the piano of her dreams. And even though none of it is as Zoe dreamed, it turns out to be "a crooked kind of perfect" and she wouldn't trade it for the world.

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